MORE than eighty percent of Islanders rated their GP practice as 'good' on the Isle of Wight.

In general, GP practices received higher approval ratings from patients on the Isle of Wight than the national average.

More than eight out of every ten patients rated their overall experience as good, with just six per cent saying it was poor. The other 10 per cent said it was 'neither good nor poor'.

Nearly 760,000 people were interviewed nationally by Ipsos/MORI, with 1,806 responses to the 3,832 questionnaires sent out on the Island.

GP practices on the Island have hit the headlines in recent months, and it was revealed last week that Ryde Esplanade Surgery has stopped all pre-bookable appointments due to staffing shortages.

Sandown Medical Centre also closed its lists to new patients at the end of July, and the Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group warned more surgeries could face the same fate.

Most respondents recorded high satisfaction with specific services including the helpfulness of the receptionists (91 per cent), the ease of finding information on their practice website (73 per cent), the type of appointment they were offered (77 per cent) and the appointment time offered to them (65 per cent).

The scores for ease in getting through to the practice on the phone were not as high — with more than one in four patients not finding this easy — but the Island still performed above many other areas in the country, with 72 per cent satisfaction.

Nine out of ten Islanders recorded satisfaction with their mental health needs being recognised and understood.

Dr Timothy Whelan, a GP in Newport and the deputy clinical lead for the NHS Isle of Wight CCG, said: "Patient satisfaction levels are generally high, and the smaller and medium-sized practices tend to perform especially well. The challenge is obviously to work to improve on these ratings when many practices are short of GPs and nurses.

"In particular, we could encourage Islanders to make more use of their practices’ online services, where they can book appointments and request repeat prescriptions.

"In summary, this survey tells us that people are generally satisfied with the services they receive from their local practices, and we are grateful for this support. However, we do need to use the findings to look at areas where we could be doing better."